Sunday, August 20, 2023

Chinese Fertility Collapse

Chart from Kevin Drum. Remarkably rapid collapse in the past seven years, to a rate lower than anywhere but South Korea.

Comparable rates for other nations: 

South Korea:  0.8
Japan 1.3
Vietnam  2.0
North Korea  1.9
India  2.0
US 1.7

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2 comments:

G. Verloren said...

1/2

I've read some interviews with young Chinese women on this topic, and there seems to be a pattern of certain factors they cite.

1) They value their individualism, which they perceive as being stronger in themselves than it is in older generations - something some of they attribute to having been children during the era of the one-child policy, and not having siblings.

2) They heavily cite fears of harming or even losing their careers by becoming pregnant, because working women in China do not have legal protections against discrimination over maternity issues.

3) They also point to a change in Chinese divorce law implemented in 2020 which requires a "cooling-off period" before a divorce can be granted, which young women explain has produced a chilling effect when it comes to women contemplating marriage. Combined with China's basically non-existent domestic abuse laws, a lot of young women are terrified of getting trapped in an abusive relationship that the government won't let them leave, and so are putting off marrying, or even foregoing it altogether.

4) They also cite fears of human trafficking - specifically, bride-trafficking, which is a longstanding problem that government authorities are frequently complicit in, but which has seen growing public awareness and sparked greater controversy in recent years. To illustrate the severity of the situation, Chinese law punishes the purchasing of trafficked women and children less harshly than it punishes the purchasing of illegal flora and fauna.

August 20, 2023 at 11:55 PM
David said...

@Verloren

Hear, hear! Thank you for the very interesting and informed analysis.

August 21, 2023 at 9:46 AM

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